Hierarchies and Institutions

Look at what happened to Jesus. He gave his life teaching some really cool stuff, which boils down to unconditional love and nonviolent resistance to injustice. Then people start a church institution, and create a hierarchy of people who are authorized by their great education and expertise to interpret what Jesus said and did, and the next thing you know, you've got the Spanish Inquisition and the genocide of indigenous people around the globe, all in the name of Jesus. Mohammed – same thing. Even Mary Baker Eddy, with the care she made to create a democratic, non-hierarchical institution to protect her teaching, is effectively revered as a god by some Christian Scientists, her teaching skewed.

It seems to be pretty universal. Any time you create an institution to protect a precious teaching, a hierarchy is created to run the institution; the hierarchy separates those who have passed the written test and received the diploma from those who haven't, and the credential becomes more important than the teaching. The teaching is corrupted.

So maybe it's better to produce no institution at all, and to keep the teaching at the most accessible, equally available to all.

Besides, things like certification or ordination are based on fear – fear that the teaching will be corrupted if it is allowed to be taught by someone who hasn't had the "proper education." Yet if the teaching is true, it will always be there. It cannot be corrupted. If someone gets it wrong, it will show in their life.

When you don't have credentials, you stand on equal ground with your students. You have to prove your knowledge. If what you offer meets their needs, they will come to you.

Thoughts on God and Sex [Revised]

There's an interesting distinction in my battered old King James that is replaced with the word 'homosexuality' in a lot of the newer translations. The word homosexuality wasn't even coined until something like the 1890's, so using it in a Bible translation seems the height of hubris. Anyway, in Romans 1:26-27, Paul says "…even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another…" Big-time condemnation of homosexuality and homosexuals, right?

But remember who Paul was speaking to. He was a Roman Jew living in an area that was saturated in Greek culture. Remember what a mentor was originally? He was an older Greek man who accepted a post-pubescent boy to be his apprentice, student, and paramour. Every man was expected to mentor somebody, and every boy expected to be mentored. Remember Sodom? Who wanted to have sex with Abram and Lot? That's right, it was every single man in town. (All the married ones, too.) It wasn't a few women shacking up together that earned Lesbos its reputation.

So who was Paul talking about? Read the whole chapter. It sounds a hell of a lot like a hell of a lot of people. Not just a few queers.

Was he condemning homosexuals? Or condemning people who had sex against their own nature?

Who hurt other people more – Barney Frank, the openly gay congressman from Massachusetts who enjoys a loving relationship with another man, or that pastor in Colorado, what was his name, Ted Haggard or something, who ripped his family and church apart with his relationship with a gay prostitute?

Homosexuality isn't a choice. Nobody in their right mind, in our culture, would make a choice like that, and invite all the hate, ridicule, discrimination, and physical danger of gay-bashing that comes with it. You're gay because that's who you are, and either God made you that way, or God got the hell out of the way and it was a random chance, or God doesn't exist, or God made a mistake. Oops. Sorry, Tom. I got these rules, see, but I just made you in a way that you can never obey them and be true to yourself at the same time. You don't obey them, and I'm gonna drop you into a fire and torture you forever. Tough life, dude, good luck.

It's tough to say with Paul [- at least, it is for me, because I disagree with a lot of what he said -] but I think he [had intentions of helping people live happier lives]. I'm guessing he was talking about heterosexuals. And that would imply that it's a sin for a homosexual to get married and have sex with a person of the opposite sex. That's right. I said that Paul's words imply that sometimes it's a sin to have heterosexual sex within the bonds of matrimony.

(I think that's why Republicans have so many problems holding their marriages sacred. At least when Democrats cheat, they cheat with people of the opposite sex.)

The question is, do we generalize Paul's condemnations in the first chapter of Romans to mean that the problem is sex outside of marriage and individual nature, or do we generalize it to mean that the problem is homosexual sex?

If it's the first, are we furthering the gospel by ensuring that between two or three percent of the population cannot have sex that is natural to them within the sanctity of marriage?

How do we decide which position Paul was taking? How do we gain the wisdom to make that choice? And what is our responsibility to do so, and sit in judgment over our fellow humans? Does Paul, or perhaps Jesus, offer any guidance?

Well, perhaps.

I turn my battered old Bible to Matthew 5:44, and read, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

I flip the page. It's made of rice paper, thin, delicate, and torn from many readings, so I turn it carefully, kind of holding the torn pieces together. And there I see Matthew 7:1-3: "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?" I turn the pages again, to Matthew 22:21, where Jesus says, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"

(Y'all can have your new translations. I'll keep my old King James, with its beauty and poetry. And it smells good, too.)

Maybe we don't have to make that choice.

Maybe we don't have to take that responsibility unto ourselves.

Maybe we can withdraw from the argument, and let God do the judging.

But wouldn't that mean we'd have to let people decide for themselves who they thought it was natural to marry? Wouldn't that mean changing the laws to admit the whole range of gender and sex into the legal institution of marriage? Men with men, women with women, transpeople with whoever?

Wouldn't that destroy our society?

Um… well – what does it change, on a practical level? Those folks are getting married in their own churches already. They're giving birth, adopting, raising kids, and doing it with legal hurtles we don't have to deal with. But they're making it work. They're signing contracts and living wills that ensure they own their children and that they'll be with their partners in medical emergencies. They're planning ahead and enriching lawyers left and right. They're facing life with courage and passion, and yes, love.

What is our responsibility to our fellow humans – and, for that matter, to the elect of God, our own congregations?

What does it mean to come out from the world, and be separate?

If our neighbors Tom and Andrew want to go down to the courthouse and sign a contract to love each other and raise their daughter together, we don't have to officiate at their wedding, do we?

No.

We don't have to welcome them into our pews, do we?

No.

We don't have to say we agree with them, do we?

No.

We don't have to compromise our faith in any way, do we?

No.

The legal contract that they sign in front of the county clerk doesn't equate in any way with sacred vows spoken at the holy altar of God, does it?

No. That contract is sealed with the "image and superscription" of Caesar (or, at least, the state).

We can, however, stand out in front of the courthouse, and show 'em Romans 1:26-27, and explain that we're really worried that they're making a big mistake, and all those bad things Paul threatens are going to happen to them, and tell them how much we love them and how badly we'll miss them if they don't make it into heaven with us. That's what we'd do if we really loved them, like Jesus says we should, right?

But if we really loved them, would we stop them from passing by and making that mistake? Would we raise a gun, and point it at them, and tell them we'll shoot if they pass through those courthouse doors? Would we join arms together and form a human chain that would block them, and use our greater numbers to prevent them from acting on their own conscience?

Because that's what you're doing.

What would Jesus do?

Judge not…

… lest ye be judged.

So spake Jesus, and what exactly did he mean by it, anyway?

I thought about it a bit, and talked it over with Kristin, and came to some conclusions.

It all ties back to the Garden of Eden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Does anyone still think that story is literal rather than allegory?

Judging is when you say what someone else is, a statement about the quality of their being rather than a statement of the quality of their actions. For example, "You're so intelligent!" "He's a good kid." "George Bush is evil."

When you make statements such as those – when you judge – you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and set yourself in a position of dominance over the person judged. After all, you're the one hereby qualified to make that judgment of hir!

But by accepting that paradigm – eating that fruit – you accept also that others can (and will) judge you, and thereby grant them authority and dominion over you. You accept others as your judges.

It is the heart of the domination culture in which we live and suffer, the one that says the rich deserve to keep and waste all of their immense wealth, and the mentally ill deserve to be cast out to beg on street corners and sleep under bridges.

We don't have to leave the Garden of Eden. We don't have to buy into the paradigm of judgment. We can choose.

Because if you don't believe in good and evil, if you don't make judgments about the quality of other people or animals or events, if you don't judge them – their judgments have no power over you.

This is the paradigm that NVC teaches.

I believe that this is the heart of Jesus' gospel, even more than "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or any other aspect. Certainly more than damnation and hellfire, or sin.

I'm starting to get it, but it's still too easy to judge. I have so many needs unmet when I hear of the crimes and policies that the Bush administration commits, that even though in my head I know they're just human beings doing their best to meet needs, just like me, I still feel in my heart that they're evil. And when Christians judge me so harshly because they don't like the way I live, and try to keep me from marrying who I want to or entering restrooms appropriate to my gender, I still think they are ignorant hypocrites. My own judgments that cast me out of the Garden and subject me to the power of their judgments.

I'm working on it.

I want to get back into the Garden.

Thou hypocrite...

It's not a sin to be yourself. How else can you be true to others? As the Bard said, "To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou cannot be false to any man." Does it not follow that, if you are not true to yourself, you are being false to others?

It is a sin to keep your children in ignorance of me, because I am who I am. First, you are bearing false witness - you are lying to your children. Second, you are preventing them from getting to know a truly beautiful and loving person. Third, you are judging unfairly. As Jesus put it:
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged ... and why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? ... Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye: and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

Worst of all, when you intentionally keep children ignorant of any particular group of people, whether they be blacks, or Jews, or gays, or trans, you perpetrate a culture of violence against those people. You may have no ill intentions, and may even believe that you are motivated by love, but the message you send to your children is that these people are evil or depraved - that they are people to be feared. Ignorace leads to fear, and fear leads to violence. That is when black men get dragged behind pickup trucks, and gay men get tied to a fence and pistol-whipped, and transwomen get stabbed forty times. Not because of anything they've done, but because of who they are.

Do you want that on your conscience?

Domination Culture

A friend was talking with Kristin about her garden the other day.

"I wish my soil wasn't so thick and compacted and hard."

Kristin: "Well, that's why I've mulched this one so much." Our garden has fruit trees and fava beans blooming; asparagus, potatoes, and peas sprouting; kale, collards, chives, and swiss chard already at or near harvestable stage; garlic growing quickly.

Her friend sipped her tea. "I know, but I've got a commitment problem. I never know whether I'm going to be here next year, or not."

Kristin raised an eyebrow. "Well, what's your commitment to the earth?"

"What do you mean?"

"My dear, you don't have to do it for you. You take all your food from the earth, and give nothing back. You can do it for the earth, or for the next person to live there."

"Oh!"

The sound of lightbulbs going on.

We have an amazingly self-centered culture. I may be wrong, but I put the fault at a mistake made long ago, written in stone in the first chapter of the Bible: Go forth, and subdue the earth, and have dominion over it; God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed… and every tree; etc. No one remembers that the first part of that commandment is "replenish the earth," and the reason no one remembers it is because the entire paradigm of our culture is in direct opposition to it.

We belong to a culture that says, "The earth belongs to us, to do with as we please."

In fact, as Chief Seattle said, we belong to the Earth. "Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

As a species, and as a society, I believe there is nothing more important to our survival than to make that simple paradigm shift. But when I see how the dominant religions in the world – especially, in our country, Christianity – all agree on the domination paradigm, I'm not optimistic.

Ironically, I think Chief Seattle's paradigm was exactly what Jesus was trying to get at, when he said, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; … Seek ye first the kingdom of God." The Earth is the kingdom of god; and we should return to Mother Nature Her dominion over us. We should take from Her gently, and nurture Her in return.

But of course, interpreted from a domination paradigm, the message is different. The kingdom is something that only happens after we die – after the Earth has been stripped, raped, and barren – and we get there by making damn sure that homosexuals can't get married.

Never mind that they go ahead and do it anyway, just without the legal and civil rights that fine, upstanding christians take for granted.

Thoughts on Eternity

Mathematically, eternity is a point, not a line.

Let me explain.

Eternity is frequently viewed as time extending out infinitely. This view is ubiquitous in religious dogma, where the fear of suffering in hellfire and damnation is harnessed as a means of social manipulation and control. Or, to remove the evaluation from that statement, eternity simply means the future, or the past, extending forever in either direction. It has nothing to do with the present, or, as Eckhart Tolle puts it, “the Now.”

As a practical matter, though, placing eternity into the past and future renders it meaningless. How can any human relate to infinite time? The earth is what, five billion years old? And in five or ten billion more, it won’t exist. Who can comprehend it?

Bringing eternity back to the present – the only practical way to look at it – makes it useful and incredibly meaningful. Think about it. What time do we actually have? Only right now. That is all we will ever have. Two minutes from now is the future – it doesn’t exist and never will, as a human experience. Two minutes ago is past, and can only be experienced in memory. We live, we breathe, we die, now. And now is all we have. Now and eternity are synonyms.

What does that mean for the words of Jesus, or other Bible figures?

It means a lot. It means that heaven and hell are not future events, but present experiences. It offers us an escape from fear, a path of love, a way to live in the present and embrace completely our lives right now. It is incredibly empowering.

Eternity is the point at which we live our lives. If one's life is hell now, it is hell for eternity, because it is one's experience in the only time that exists. It’s a good sign that we ought to do something to fix it.

And we can; every moment we have the choice of changing something within our lives to meet those needs that are currently unmet.